NRS 440 Research legislation that has occurred within the last 5 years at the state or federal level as a result of nurse advocacy
NRS 440 Research legislation that has occurred within the last 5 years at the state or federal level as a result of nurse advocacy
NRS 440 Research legislation that has occurred within the last 5 years at the state or federal level as a result of nurse advocacy
Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio is the United States Senator that was the one to promote the bill focusing specifically on the registered nurse to patient rations nationwide. In 2020-2021 a legislation was placed in front of congress to help in the ongoing issue with the nurse to patient rations that is a nationwide issue. “The COVID-19 pandemic inflicted unprecedented hardship on US nursing homes (NHs) including high COVID-19 infections and mortality rates among residents, as well as disruption in day-to-day operations” (Yang,.2021). This issue has become more of a progressive issue since the COVID19 pandemic and is now necessary to make the changes to improve the way in which we care for people. “The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, by 2030, there will be a worldwide net shortage of 15 million doctors, nurses and other health workers” (Michaela et al,.2020). Staffing rations have been regulated on a state by state basis but with the continued concern for the wellbeing of patients and evidence based practices is having now been brought to a national level for legislation to regulate. Having government controlling rations hospital systems and healthcare settings will have to be more accountable for the direct patient care provided. “Although the impacts were myriad, early reports noted pandemic-related shortages in staffing and on-hand supplies, which may have exacerbated the ability of NHs to respond to the event itself, in addition to magnifying persistent pre-existent staffing-related challenges’(Yang,.2021). Improving these issues will ultimately aid in nurse burn, improve patient outcomes as well as decreased hospital readmissions.
Reference:
Michaela Senek; Steve Robertson; Tony Ryan; Rachel King; Emily Wood; Angela Tod. In: BMC Health Services Research, Vol 20, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2020); BMC, 2020. Language: English, Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
Yang, Bo Kyum; Carter, Mary W.; Nelson, H. Wayne. In Geriatric Nursing. November-December 2021 42(6):1356-1361 Language: English. DOI: 10.1016/j.gerinurse.2021.08.016, Database: ScienceDirect
As healthcare recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, the nursing shortage becomes ever evident. Many hospitals suffer from the lack of core staff nurses, but in Arizona, this is a chronic and continuing problem. Arizona ranks “in the top 5 states experiencing the most severe staffing shortage” (Sanborn & Cato, 2022). Arizona hospitals are reliant on travel and seasonal nurses to fill in the gaps in staffing to keep staffing ratios safe. However, though travel nurses help immensely, it is not fiscally responsible for hospitals to fork out the funds to the travel companies. If Arizona could keep its own nurses, there would be less of a need for travel nurses. Thus, the hospital could use that money for increasing wages within the organization and on improving equipment within the hospital if needed.
The question that remains is why are nurses leaving their bedside positions? Some say that nurses are “overburdened” and burnt out after the past few years (Jackson, 2022). Additionally, nurses who were close to retirement when the pandemic hit often took an early retirement to get out of the virulence of healthcare (Jackson, 2022). Pay has been a frequent topic in Arizona because of the rumored amount travel nurses make but pay in Arizona is rated 15 out of 52 states (Nurse.org Staff, 2023. Thus, pay cannot be the biggest issue because it could be much worse than AZ pay.
What is Arizona doing about this shortage? A bill was recently passed to address the lack of Arizona nurses. The “Nurse Training Grant, HB2691” is a bill that gives grants to schools and hospitals to aid in the training of new nurses (Arizona State Board of Nursing [AZBN], 2022). The bill provides grants for schools to increase the amount of nursing instructors available to enable schools to take more nursing students to increase the nursing workforce (Arizona State Board of Nursing [AZBN], 2022). Hospitals can also receive funding to aid them in taking more students for clinical rotations and then hiring them as core staff. The idea of this grant is to basically raise our own nurse in hopes that they will stay in Arizona hospitals and aid in the continuing nursing shortage.
References:
Arizona State Board of Nursing [AZBN] (2022). Nurse training grant HB2691. https://www.azbn.gov/news-and-events/nurse-training-grant-hb2691
Nurse.org Staff (2023). Nurse salaries by state + the highest paying states for RN’s. Nurse.org. https://nurse.org/articles/highest-paying-states-for-registered-nurses/
Jackson, S. (2022). Arizona’s nursing shortage expected to continue through 2030. News 4 tucson KVOA. https://www.kvoa.com/coronavirus/arizonas-nursing-shortage-expected-to-continue-through-2030/article_2f0bbde4-796b-11ec-9253-5b4c87d21810.html
Sanborn, H., & Cato, D. (2022). How does arizona solve its nursing shortage? By fixing a giant training bottleneck. AZ central. https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2022/05/14/arizona-has-nursing-shortage-and-giant-training-bottleneck/9707683002/
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Assistance from a bipartisan House of Representatives and Senate introduced a bill that will improve care and help nurses and patients stay safe. The legislative were Reps. David Joyce (R-OH-14), Suzan DelBene (D-WA-10), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-1), and Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI-2) as well as Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), came together to introduce the Safe Staffing for Nurse and Patient Safety Act of 2018. (Capitol Beat, 2018). Support for developing a culture of respect in which each nurse is protected is very important to the American Nurses Association (ANA). Having a safe working environment protects the healthcare workers and lowers the risk of patient complications. Registered nurses are critical providers of patient care that play an important role in improving the health of the patient population. They provide care in every possible health care setting, including hospitals, physicians’ offices, outpatient care centers, and skilled nursing facilities, as well as in behavioral health settings, the home, schools, universities, prisons, and private employer settings (Zhavoronkova, et al.,2022). Nurses constantly working unstaffed have left the profession burnt out from stressors and traumatic experiences. There was a mass exit as a result of the Covid Pandemic due to them not feeling respected with canceled PTO’s, needed for a mental health break, because of mortality occurring professionally and personally. Threats to the nursing workforce is nothing new, but having legislative proposals to address them is essential for nurses to deliver safe care.
References:
Introducing the Safe Staffing for Nurse and Patient Safety Act. (2018). Capitol Beat, From the American Nurses Association. Blog.
Zhavoronkova, M.,Custer, B.,Neal, A. (2022). How to Ease the Nursing Shortage in America. The Center for American Progress, CAP.
One of the laws that was enacted as a result of nurse advocacy is the Restoring Hope for Mental Health and Well-Being Act. This law was enacted in June 2022. It came to address the mental health crisis in the United States of America. This law came into being as nurses noted a high prevalence of mental illness cases and also an increase in the number of deaths as a result of drug overdose (Bartram, 2021). This legislation also aimed to address issues of child and adolescent mental health crisis and the psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the United States of America populace (Yusli et al, 2021). The Restoring Hope for Mental Health and Well-Being Act reauthorizes and modifies activities related to mental health. It addresses coordination of federal efforts related to behavioral health. It looks at issues involved with maternal mental health and substance use disorders. The Restoring Hope for Mental Health and Well-Being Act promotes the prevention and treatment of mental and behavioral health issues for veterans, members of the armed forces, front line workers, tribal populations and other specified groups. This law addresses eating disorders, the provision of school based mental health services and it advocates for the integration of behavioral health in primary care settings. This law reauthorizes the provision of grants to support the behavioral health workforce, grants related to prevention of suicide and the support of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Program. This legislation also reauthorizes the provision of the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access grant as well as the comprehensive community Mental Health Services for Children with serious emotional disturbances. There is need for continued identification of mental health illness cases and those suffering from drug overdose so that they can be helped to attain good health and well being.
References
Bartram, M. (2021). ‘It’s Really About Wellbeing’: An American Investigation of Harm Reduction as a Bridge Between Mental Health and Addiction Recovery. Int J Ment Health Addiction. 1497–1510.
Yusli, N. A. N. M., Roslan, S., Zaremohzzabieh, Z., Ghiami, Z., & Ahmad, N. (2021). Role of Restorativeness in Improving the Psychological Well-Being of University Students. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 646329. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.646329
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Every time there has been a patient advocacy law, it has helped nurses overcome obstacles and fix underlying problems that were threatening patients’ health. Advocacy in the healthcare industry has resulted in a number of laws, including the Sustaining Excellence in Medicaid Act. Because of concerns voiced by nurse leaders, the bill was drafted to create a more effective approach to ensure the safety of patients in the healthcare business (Milbrath & Snyder, 2021). Representative Debbie Dingell introduced the bill to address nurses’ concerns about the quality of healthcare services and the impact of payment issues on treatment outcomes. Among the answers, nurses pushed for that helped pass the law and protect patients was an expansion of Medicaid.
The expansion of Medicaid’s payment options to include more at-risk persons is one way in which the Sustaining Excellence in Medicaid Act helps a wide range of patients. Patients frequently anticipate nurses to employ advocacy techniques to increase their safety, such as reevaluating patient eligibility (Knight, 2021). Patients who qualify for Medicaid benefits are another target of the legislation’s established programs. Because of the new law, all types of patients can participate in the payment process. This data supports the conclusion that Debbie’s policy can be used to expand participation in healthcare. Payments for various drugs and services are a step that will lead to higher compensation for medical practitioners.
In light of the ever-present need for improvement, patient safety advocacy is a topic that needs more adjustments. Research has always been useful in identifying patient issues and developing effective treatments for those issues. Nurses should press for the implementation of key mechanisms for teaching patients in order to raise awareness about the importance of safety. If patients are able to comprehend their illnesses and work with their treatment plans, then it is reasonable to expect them to pay for medications and medical care. Post-discharge education processes that increase patient compliance with treatment should always be mandated by law. The incentive to follow the requirements of the Sustaining Excellence in Medicaid Act will be boosted by such a consideration.
Reference
Knight, A. (2021). Unfinished business: Deinstitutionalization and Medicaid policy. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 9(2), 395-408. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2020.1854324
Milbrath, G., & Snyder, A. (2021). The emergency nurses association: 50 years of advocacy and advancement. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 47(2), 224-238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2020.11.007